The Claire Went Over the Mountain, Part II

Okay, I've used this title before, but that was over a year ago, and it was on the old blog anyway. I think I'm so damned clever that I'll use it again. I reserve the right to use this title whenever I damned well please, so there.

Several weeks ago when Anne and I climbed Mt. Wachusett, I shot my mouth off about climbing the tallest mountain in Massachusetts. Then, some anonymous little birdie whispered in my ear that Mt. Greylock, with a vertical drop of nearly three times that of Mt. Wachusett was the tallest mountain in Massachusetts. As I normally do when someone points out an error of mine, I beat myself up more than was necessary (picture Chris Farley banging his forehead yelling "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!!!"), and bitterly promised myself that I would climb Mt. Greylock, sooner rather than later if possible.

Admittedly, deciding to climb a mountain in New England in mid-November wasn't one of my most shining displays of good sense. We have had a mild fall, but the day's high was projected to be only in the mid-40's, and what this fall has lacked in low temperatures, it's made up for in wind. But this was likely my last chance for an outdoor ride for the next four months. Never one to listen to the voice of reason, I planned one last century ride up Mt. Greylock and through the Berkshires and Catskills of Massachusetts and New York.

I packed everything the night before and woke up early to make sure I had plenty of daylight. I don't know why I thought that a drive that normally takes two and a half hours would only take an hour and a half, but that's how I budgeted my time for the morning. So even though I left ahead of schedule, I was still running nearly an hour late when I arrived in Pittsfield two (not one) and a half hours later. I was a bit apprehensive about the weather at first, but the first little hill warmed me up quickly and it was a beautiful day. It wasn't even all that windy, for once. All the pavement was smooth, and there was very little debris on the wide shoulders. Still, there was the occasional shattered beer bottle, and I spent the whole first 20 miles of the ride convinced that thousands of tiny shards of glass were working their way through my tires to give me a flat. I rubbed my glove against my tires, just like you're supposed to, but wouldn't it be just my luck to get a flat...? Does that ever happen to you guys? Where you spend an entire ride convinced your tire's about to blow at any second and you'll be stranded 3 hours from your nearest lifeline?


I found the road that goes up the mountain without much fanfare and started climbing... right away. You know those roads that look more like vertical walls? The ones you look at and you think, please, oh PLEASE don't be the road I have to turn on, please don't be this one!? Well Notch road was that road. It didn't waste any time in showing me what it had in mind for me, opening with a roughly 12% grade before settling into about 7 or 8% sprinkled with double digits at the curves to keep things interesting.

Before long the houses had bigger and bigger yards, and eventually they disappeared completely. I passed a trailhead, turned a corner, passed a parking lot, and saw a big chain across the road with a big, old orange barrel smack in the middle of it. A big, reflective sign said, "ROAD CLOSED."

Clearly, they didn't mean me.

Note: The AVERAGE grade is 6%, but there are several spots that linger well above that, and even reach grades of over 20% in places.

I ducked under the chain and hopped right back on my bike. The road surface was PERFECT, newly paved and glassy smooth. It was a little bit wet and slick from yesterday's rain, with some debris and branches in the road from recent storms, but all in all it was the cleanest road I've seen in a long time.

Fucking steep though.

The average grade for the 8.8 miles to the summit is 6%, but that means STEEP segments interspersed with milder spots for recovery and a relatively flat mile across a the crest to the summit. I can push some pretty big gears for a peanut my size, and there were times that I was in my easiest gear, climbing out of the saddle, and wondering if I was going to have the strength to keep turning the pedals. For the first time I wondered if I should get a triple chainring before I go to Europe. At one point I my breathing and heartrate got so out of control that I did have to stop and stand still for a minute before I could go on. But I rode every inch of those 2,776' up the mountain.

Despite the cold temperatures (it must have been in the mid-30's by the time I was getting close to the top), I was sweating bullets. My sweat smelled unfamiliar, like my asshole brother whose stench can knock you down 3 rooms away: something like organic hippie moisturizer or something. I kept snorting my own sweat droplets and felt like I had the ocean in the back of my throat. I wondered if the sweat in my ponytail would freeze. Isn't the back of your neck one of those places that you have to keep warm because it affects your perceived temperature throughout the whole body? The whole second half of the climb I kept thinking, Fuck the true summit, I don't need those last 300 feet! When I get up there I just need to get down as quickly as possible so I don't freeze to death.

But then suddenly I came out of the woods, and I was in the middle of the sky and I could see EVERYTHING. The Berkshires were below me off to one side, the Catskills off to the other, and all these little towns nestled in through the valley. It was the kind of view that is impossible to describe without sounding cheezy. You know, when you can see for so far that you can see the shadows of all the different clouds that have the diameters of whole mountains? I am not one to be taken in by scenery, but I was taken in by this view. So when I reached a crossroads where I could go up to the summit, or just continue back down out of the park, I rode the rest of the way to the top. It turned out to be the mellowest slope on the mountain.

As I was climbing the last chunk to the top, I thought about how sad it was that I didn't know anyone else who would have been able to make this climb with me. They had no idea what they were missing. The ones who might be physically strong enough don't have the time to make such silly trips. I kept thinking about how great I was and went back and forth between feeling smug and feeling sad. It sure is lonely at the top.

Then there was nowhere to go but down, down, down. I rode slowly not because of the slick roads, or because of the sharp, hairpin turns, but because it was fucking COLD and I wanted to cut down on the wind as much as possible. Gone was the pompous satisfaction in knowing that I and I alone was badass enough to do this ride. All I could think about was whether my lips were blue or not. Ten miles and about 20 minutes later I reached the road block on the other side of the park. I had to walk my bike around the metal gate, and I was shivering so badly I had trouble walking at all. On the other side was a Visitors' Center, and there must be a God, because not only was it open, but there was a fireplace inside.

"How many of you guys are up on that road?" the ranger asked when I got in.
"I only saw one other nut case up there," I said, shivering violently.
"Road's closed. You're not supposed to be up there, but my boss hasn't seemed too upset about it so far," he said. This ranger gig was clearly how this man was spending his retirement. He was probably around 200 years old, and what coffee-colored teeth he had left were falling all over each other trying to fill the gaps that the missing ones had left. His official jacket had what looked like an ancient soup stain down the front, and he was wearing gators over his boots despite a clear lack of snow or calf-deep mud anywhere in the visitor's center. "You'd better get next to the fire," he told me.

So I rotisseried myself in front of the fire for about 20 minutes until the shivering subsided and from time to time he came over and talked to me. "You doing a loop 'round the park?" he asked.
"Sort of," I said. I pulled out my directions and read the major roads I'd be following.
"You going all the way over towards Troy?" (New York) he asked. "You know, there's an honest-to-goodness mountain range between here and there..."
"I know," I said. I'd seen the elevation profile, and had specifically planned to go off in that direction to get a little more climbing in. Now that I was out here, though, it wasn't the climbing I was afraid of, it was the descending. I wouldn't be climbing anything half as tall as what I'd just gone over, and I still had four and a half hours to do the next 60 miles before it got dark.
Despite running a hilly 17 miles yesterday, my bike and I felt great and I was mentally ready for an all-day ride. I was just so damned cold! As I walked out the door, not quite finished shivering he called after me, "You'd better cut your ride short!"

It was the last straw. I've mentioned before how the naysayers can shake my confidence and make me convinced that suddenly I can't do something that every experience in my life has told me I can. As I rode the last couple of miles down the hill to the highway I started shivering so violently that I was afraid I was going to start jerking around my handlebars. I knew I was only about 10 miles from the car, so rather than turning off towards New York, I just rode back. Of course within about 5 minutes of pedaling on flat ground I was more than warm enough and feeling like a million bucks.

As I drove back home, I was furious at myself, furious at the sunny sky, and furious that there were clearly hours and hours and hours of daylight left. I was even more furious when I looked at my thermometer and saw that it was nearly 60º outside. What a fucking loser! I know that I'm a strong cyclist, but for some reason I forget. Sometimes I convince myself that I'll never, ever be able to do things that I've done dozens of times, just like riding 100 miles today. I was really, really in need of a good ride to bolster my confidence. As you might have noticed, I've been a bit glum lately, and it's seeping into everything. I've kept up my bike volume this fall, but for some reason I don't believe I will ever be able to reach the level I was at this summer. I know it makes no sense, but I'm convinced I'm going to wake up a 15-mph rider next year and that my running and swimming are going to fall apart at a similar rate. I just really, really, really needed a good ride to feel strong again. I was feeling good today, but all the confidence I built going up the mountain had evaporated by the time I got back down.

You fucking loser, I kept telling myself on the ride home. You fucking slack off at EVERYTHING! This is one of the reasons that long drives can be a bad thing. I think too much. No wonder you suck so bad, I was convinced now that I had crossed the threshold now from being paranoid about sucking to ACTUALLY sucking, you always take the easy way out! Don't feel like doing a run? You just don't do it, you loser. Everyone ELSE is out there working their little tails off, and you're just sitting on your ass eating macaroni & cheese until doing a workout suits you. I knew that I'm in my offseason, and there was no reason to be beating myself up for going home after only 47 miles, but I was anyway. What are you even DOING going for a long ride today? It's not your biking that's the fucking problem. It's your running. Has it even occurred to you that you have a MARATHON in 2 months, and that you're supposed to be trying to qualify for Boston in 3? Don't you think you should be spending your energy actually RUNNING rather than climbing up fucking mountains in the dead of winter?! Didn't that idea fucking OCCUR to you?! My inner voice can really be a douchebag sometimes. But he's right (my inner voice is a man). If I'm so scared of sucking when the snow has melted and I'm finally set free again, maybe I should be taking this time to work on the things that I REALLY suck at, rather than wasting all my energy doing the fun stuff.

I know, I know. Lighten up.